A brilliant but idiosyncratic British detective and his resourceful local team solve baffling murder mysteries on the fictional Caribbean island of Saint-Marie.

In the 60s, the Government encourages Islanders to leave the French West Indies to escape poverty that results from the closure of sugar mills. Lured by the idea of a "dream country", they find life in Europe is not what they had imagined.

In late 18th-century Martinique, a plantation owner, his irresponsible young aristocratic wife and his beautiful black mistress are drawn into a spiral of violence that reflects all the horror and inhumanity of the perverse relations between masters and slaves.